The hosts of Fox & Friends found themselves confounded by the announcement[1] that Bradley Manning, the former Army private convicted of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, identifies as a female and wishes to be identified as Chelsea Manning.

On the August 22 edition of Fox & Friends, guest host Ainsley Earhart reported that the Manning case had taken a "bizarre" turn with lawyer David Coombs' announcement that his client wishes to live her life as a woman. While the GLAAD Media Reference Guide[2] calls on outlets to refer to transgender people by their chosen pronouns, Earhart and co-hosts Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy repeatedly referred to Manning as a male. Earhart reported that "this news comes as his lawyers, her lawyers - what do you say here, I don't know" are seeking a presidential pardon for Manning. Kilmeade introduced the segment saying, "[y]ou've got to take it slow because it confuses people":

Fox News - and especially the cast of Fox & Friends ­- has a history of promoting disparaging depictions[3] of transgender people.